BLITZKRIEGGerman officers were expected to act on initiative and take decisions on the field based on their judgment rather than wait for orders or confirmation from HQ. This made them very effective tactical commanders and made the Wehrmacht a formidably reactive force.

German officers using the ‘You men, snap to action’ special rule can take one additional order die from the bag and assign it as normal. In other words, a German Second lieutenant (Leutnant) takes two dice instead of one, a German First lieutenant (Oberleutnant) takes three dice, a captain (Hauptmann) take four and a German major takes five!

INITIATIVE TRAININGEven at squad level, in the German army every man is trained with some of the skills of his superiors, and encouraged to show initiative and decisiveness rather than just sit and wait to receive orders.

If an infantry squad’s NCO is killed, roll a D6. On the score of a 1, the NCO is removed as normal. On the roll of a 2 or higher, one of the other troopers takes over the squad and leads it just as effectively as before. To represent this leave the NCO in place and remove any other model instead (it is assumed the new ‘squad leader’ swaps his weapons with the ones carried by the NCO, if different). If the NCO is successfully replaced the unit does not suffer the usual –1 morale penalty for losing its NCO.

HITLER’S BUZZ SAWGerman-made machine guns, but in particular the lethal MG42, are vastly superior to their enemies’ and rightly feared by Allied infantrymen.

German light and medium machine guns fire one extra shot. Note that this applies to all light and machine guns, both those carried by infantry units and vehicle-mounted ones.

TIGER FEARSuch was the lethal reputation of Tiger tanks, that often Allied troops were spooked by the appearance of any German heavy armour, mistakenly thinking that any Panzer IV was a Tiger waiting in ambush!

All enemy units that have line of sight to one or more German vehicles with the Tiger fear special rule (see the vehicles section of this army list) suffer from Tiger fear. Units suffering from Tiger fear count as having one extra pin marker on them when taking any order test, except if ordered to Fire against a vehicle causing Tiger fear. Note that this penalty also affects units without any pin marker, which must therefore take an order test on –1 morale to execute orders even if they have no pin markers.